Eine Stadt. Ein Buch – 100.000 books for free

I don’t know in how many cities this is normal, but here in Vienna we have every year this “Eine Stadt. Ein Buch” (1 town. 1 book). That means you can get one of 100.000 books for free (in a library or other places in town). This year it’s a John Irving book called “Lasst die Bären los!” (O.T.: Setting Free The Bears). It’s quite ok, especially if you are ill & right out of prison like me (I always get ill if I come out of prison, it’s a problem with the society, or like a friend calls it “ A problem with reasocialization” ;)).
Irving is nice, every 5 to 7 years, because his books are somehow similar (often bears, often families, often Vienna, often…), but they are funny & easy to read. But if the green party says it’s strange, that since 4 years only books written by male writers are published – so that’s true (http://wien.gruene.at/frauen/artikel/lesen/4870/).

I like the idea that 100.000 people are reading the same book at the same time. So I started immediately reading when it came out the 14th. February in the underground. But I was frotten the only one & now I’m ill and can not see the others. How is it? Are people reading in public spaces? Are there now 99.999 readers all over the town?
I imagined an underground full of readers, the people start talking about the book, dicsuss it. That would be nice. But I think that’s only in my romantic 68ies head ;).

So – anyway. Irving uses in the german translation often the word “frotten”, & I dont know exactly what it means. Somebody could help me?
I give you some examples (in german):

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Frot
maybe this could be a clue, though it doesn’t seem to make much sense either..
OMG, IT’S FOR FREE!! GRAB ONE! NO, GRAB THREE! i bet at least 70.000 out of the 100.000 people didn’t even know what they were standing in line (?) for. reminds me of the “donnerstags-demo” for some reason..

Thanks for all the infos, I also think it has something in common with fucking. I like the word “frotten”, because it sounds idiotic & I used it today in the supermarket, 1 of this frotten eggs was broken in its box. Frot!
About my time in jail:
I was for nothing special in prison, this time it was only a financial thing:
I have since a long time together with fm zombiemaus an project called “The Tokyo Symphony”. It is a quite expensive project and we had an investor that helped us. I also invested all my money. But than we got a letter from the municipality of Tokyo, and they informed us, that the project is at the earliest possible in summer 2012. So our frottttten investor quit us, and I got all the debts, because I fucking signed the contract!!! (Contracts are nothing for artists, my mama often told me. But like all young man, I ignored her). That’s why I was once again in prison. Shiiiiiiit!
But btw.: fm zombiemaus was nice, she often visited me in prison & she helped me, because she found an group called “Lesser Group” and they cleared of all my debts. That’s why I’m back in town. I only have a few weeks left in prison, and I can choose myself when I serve the last parts of my sentence. Thanks to fm zombiemaus that she didn’t let me down & to Lesser Group Austria that they believing in us & the Tokyo Symphony.

& Umberto: At the beginning the book is good, but it gets worse. It’s not at all Irvings masterpiece. I would recommend Irvings Hotel New Hampshire. Much better, funnier, absurd.
Anyone a tip what you would read if you want to read about Vienna? Maybe we can make a proposal for the book next year :-)
A female writer would be great!

Photos

Recent Comments

Michael Jackson tribute event in Vienna: Cancelled!Airbus 380 Try a flashmob. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v =BtWWV0UYhzMxian holiday shopping ,pls choose www.jordanshoesjordanshoes.com 1) Jeans: Seven,Artful Dodger, BBC, Christan...Dan It would have been a possibly nice event had they actually managed to present a line-up at the time the tickets...